Yana Danzig

Yana Danzig founded Brushstrokes For History, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving and celebrating the overlooked history of local communities through art. What began as a project she started as a 17-year-old high school student grew into a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that engaged more than 1,000 volunteers, raised over $6,000 in funding, and organized community events in partnership with other nonprofits, local colleges, and the NFL.

Through mural projects, summer programs, exhibitions, and community initiatives, Brushstrokes For History has brought together artists, students, and residents to transform public spaces into visual representations of local history. In Fort Lauderdale's Sistrunk Corridor, the organization has used panels covering damaged doors and windows as canvases for community-led art that honors the people, places, and stories that shaped the neighborhood.

The organization's work gained national media recognition, including coverage from Yahoo Finance, and earned a first-place Neighborhoods USA award for Physical Revitalization and Beautification. Brushstrokes For History became the centerpiece of Yana's extracurricular profile, demonstrating how a personal passion for art and history can become a substantial organization with measurable community impact - and a defining part of her applications to Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Cambridge, and USC.

Yana mentors students who want to move beyond a good idea. She can help them listen to a community, define a mission, build partnerships, recruit volunteers, fundraise, create public-facing programs, and tell the story of their impact with care and credibility.